Tool materials for cutting, punching or forming metallic materials as well as tool materials which are subject to impact and/or heavy wear shall fulfil a number of demands which are difficult to combine. The tool material thus must be tough as well as wear resistant. Particularly high demands are raised upon the impact strength, when the tool is intended for cutting or punching comparatively thick metal plates or the like. Further the tool material must not be too expensive, which limits the possibility of choosing high contents of expensive alloying components.
Conventionally so called cold work steels are used in this technical field. These steels have a high content of carbon and a high content of chromium and consequently good wear resistance, hardenability and tempering resistance. On the other hand, the impact strength of these steels are not sufficient for all fields of application. This particularly concerns the impact strength in the transversal direction and this at least to some degree is due to the conventional manufacturing technique. Powder-metallurgically produced steels offer better features as far as the impact strength is concerned. By way of example metallurgically manufactured high speed steels have been used, which steels also have a comparatively good wear resistance. In spite of the improvements with reference to the impact strength which has been achieved through the powder-metallurgical manufacturing technique, it is desirable to offer still better tool materials in this respect and at the same time to maintain or if possible further improve other important features of the material, particularly the wear strength. Furthermore it is desirable to keep the alloying costs low by not using such expensive alloying elements as tungsten and/or cobalt, which normally are present in high amounts in high speed steels.